“I am very glad to see you,” said Manson. “Did you get my letter?”
“No, I left Warmington the day I telegraphed you.”
“Ah, well, it doesn’t matter. It was merely about your telegram I wrote. I am very sorry indeed that it proved impossible for me to send you the money, and I merely wrote a fuller explanation than my telegram contained.”
“You got caught in the crash, then?” said Steele.
“Yes, everything I possessed was swept away. It serves me right for doing what I never did in my life before, which is to dabble in stocks. Was I right in supposing from your telegram that you also had become involved?”
“Yes, and if you had sent me the money it would have been lost; so you see, you don’t need to regret that you didn’t have it. The funny thing is that I had myself thirty thousand dollars in the Detroit Bank, which, in the excitement of the day, slipped my memory as effectually as if it had been only thirty cents.”
“And did you save it?” asked Manson, with as near an approach to eagerness as he could show.
“Oh, yes, but the saving was an act of Providence, as we always try to make out our accidents are, and not through any sanity on my part. How did you come to put everything in stocks? I thought you never gambled?”
“I didn’t, up till about a week ago. Colonel Beck gave me the straight tip, which I understood came direct from Mr. Rockervelt, and I was foolish enough to act upon it.”
“He did the same kind office for me, but he’s merely a stool-pigeon for old Blair. Blair was the man behind the gun.”